


it ain't the fall that gets you

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Series: i might have gone a different way [2]
Category: Chronicles of Riddick Series, Riddick (2013)
Genre: Canon Lesbian Character, Character Study, Gen, Post-Movie(s), Slash Goggles, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 11:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johns still thinks of his son every time he rigs for cryo ... and Riddick ain't in the habit of giving a shit about whether some merc lives or dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it ain't the fall that gets you

**Author's Note:**

> A pair of post-movie tags, because I liked Boss Johns and his crew a lot more than I expected to, and Riddick is still so very ... Riddick. Warning for switch in POV between parts, from third person past to first person present; wasn't sure how to tag for that.

Johns thought of his son every time he rigged for cryo: of the Hunter Gratzner, thrown off course while its passengers and crew slept on, unaware. Even after finally running Riddick to ground, that hadn't changed. But the tenor of those thoughts had, just a little.

He frowned over at Dahl, strapping into the copilot's chair; they were alone, their new recruit already settled in the crew racks in back. "You've been patient with me and my quest for a lot of years, Dahl. You ever think maybe it wasn't worth it?"

His second looked up, shrugging casually. "You needed closure, and he was your kid. Far be it from me to tell another person how to live their life. Long as you kept your crew fed and paid, I never cared."

She didn't say, why ask now? But he couldn't help but answer, anyway. "You know, when we were out there digging up the nodes... Riddick told me my son was a hype. That he'd tried to kill a kid to save his own skin, and that's why he didn't make it off that world."

He still wasn't sure he believed Billy could have fallen that far. But in all the time Johns had been hunting him, Riddick had never denied any of his kills. If he'd said Billy wasn't one of them... Johns didn't like to admit it, but he didn't see what the percentage would have been in lying.

Dahl wrinkled her nose. "Well, that _would_ explain the contempt. Did you believe him?"

Johns faltered, looking away from her blunt gaze. "I don't know. His record was even better than mine after he left the MPs and got his own ship-- at least, before he started chasing Riddick. I was pretty damn proud of him. But he always was an OCD little shit."

Dahl cleared her throat and hesitated a moment, as if deciding whether or not to say anything else; the silence stung like the pinch of the needle in his forearm. Shit; he really _had_ been deluding himself all this time, hadn't he?

"Never met him myself," she said finally, "but I did know a couple guys who fought with him in the Wailing Wars. Asked me if you were as ruthless as he was, when I first took up with your crew."

Johns shut his eyes. No use asking why she hadn't mentioned it before; they'd never been the kind of coworkers who painted each other's toenails and shared life histories between bounties. "Never would have believed Riddick might turn out to be innocent. Of that, at least. I'm _still_ not sure why I honored the deal and went back for him."

She chuckled. "Yeah, well, that's Riddick for you. Look at me; I swore I'd never straddle the guy, and there I was, whispering all sweet-like in his ear."

He opened his eyes again at that, shooting her a skeptical look. He really hadn't thought Dahl was that flexible about her bedmates; he'd found it refreshing, actually, not having to worry about her taking some remark of his the wrong way, or the rest of the crew causing trouble competing for her favors. "Seriously? Not that it's any of my business, but... he did say to tell you to keep it warm for him."

Dahl snorted. "Asshole," she said-- but she was smiling as she said it. "He really does have big brass ones. C'mon, when would I have given him a ride? While I was patching up that mess he made of the hole in his chest, with the kid in the room the whole time? Nah. I'd bet you half the bounty on his head he was no more interested in me than I was in him, except as another predator. So I teased him back; that's as far as it went. You think I don't know someone else putting on a front when I see one? Half the shit he said was just sideshow theatrics."

 _It ain't me you gotta worry about_ , Johns remembered, and shuddered. "Yeah, I could tell by the way he was dropping men right and left." Five of Santana's crew, cut, trapped or strung up, including Santana himself, taken out with his own blade in an extraordinary display of skill. _Normally, I'd just keep going_ , Riddick had bragged.

"Well, I got it by the way he never killed any of _ours_." She shrugged, ruefully. "He could've, easily. Hadn't been for that dog, we probably never would've got our hands on him at all."

"Dahl, we left this rock with _half_ the men we arrived with," he reminded her. Luna was an all-right kid, but he didn't measure up to Lockspur and Moss' level of training and experience.

"Didn't say he didn't _get_ our guys killed, not leveling with us from the start, but he never targeted us. Just let us fall foul of our own assumptions. Makes you wonder what the stories are behind the rest of his kill-list."

Johns curled his lip, reminded again of Billy, and the ten years he'd wasted just to hear that his son had folded when things got rough. That he'd been no better than the men he'd sent to slam. No, Johns didn't wonder what the rest of the stories were; he was pretty sure he didn't want to know. "I _still_ can't believe we're sitting here justifying letting him go free. He's a psychotic murderer."

"Yeah?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "I know it's personal for you, Boss, but if he was all that crazy for blood, he could have killed me twice while you were out tracking. Hell, he could have taken me and Santana both the second time and skipped the whole exchange; the mess he made of the comms and the locker _had_ to have gone down while I was teaching the moron a lesson for licking my face."

That was news to Johns. "And the first time?"

"There was a broken window in the washroom. And while I was rinsing off, my compact-- the one with the mirror-- went missing out of my kit. I thought Santana had been perving on me, at first. But it had to have been Riddick; and he would've had to reach right past me to grab it. Centimeters away. He could have ghosted me before I even knew he was there." Dahl gave him a wry smile. "So what's it tell you that all he did was taunt me about my nipples-- _after_ I put my armor back on, in the middle of a dick measuring contest with the rest of you? Sideshow, like I said. He already had all the power; he was just making sure we knew it."

Johns sighed. Whoever _needed_ killing, he remembered Riddick justifying himself over Diaz; _they wanted my head in a box_ , about Santana's other boys. But the concept of Riddick with _honor_ still grated badly against ten years of fury. "You _sure_ you're not going sweet on him?" he replied, lightly.

"You sure _you're_ not going sweet on him?" she teased back, waggling her eyebrows. "Just because I don't do cock doesn't mean I can't see the appeal. He's a fit motherfucker, and the way he goes on the stalk, imagine if he decided to stalk _you_. Might get some great hatesex out of it."

Johns blinked as his brain went there, and shot her a dismayed look. "Dahl!"

"Just sayin'," she chuckled, then secured the last of her restraints and started the drip. "See you on the other side, Boss. Sweet dreams."

Johns swore under his breath, then activated his own system and leaned back into his chair. It wasn't as if he'd ever see Riddick again, anyway....

He yawned, and drifted away into the dark whispers of cryosleep.

* * *

I'm not in the habit of giving a shit about whether some merc lives or dies, but I did check up on Boss Johns a couple times after I left the hellhole planet where we met. Legitimate info about Furya ain't easy to find-- forty years is long enough for even institutional memory to fade-- so I had the time, and it's not like there's anyone else left in the universe I've parted on decent terms with.

Might be the novelty of an honest, do-right merc; they're about as rare as daylight in a triple-max slam. Might be that "please" when he was asking for news of his son; can't remember the last time I heard that when it wasn't someone begging for their lives. Or it might be the fact that he actually came back for me when I fell; something only one other person has ever done for me. Me, Richard B. Riddick, admitted convict and murderer. And this one hadn't even asked if I was ready to rejoin civilization.

Could be it's a little of all of the above, plus a ruthless streak that I can definitely approve of. Letting Santana's men take the brunt of me that first night was inspired; established Johns top of the pecking order without his having to lift a finger, and spared me the effort of sifting the scum from the unknowns when I took out the sentries. Not to mention he only had the opportunity to come back for me in the first place because he'd had the testes to take the node off my back and leave me to the mud beasts when I fell. If he'd tried to drag me with him, like as not he'd have got us both killed. Instead, he popped off a grenade, shielded me from the blast, and then got his ass moving quick as he could.

Only other man I thought might be trustworthy in the last decade didn't have that kind of steel; strength of heart, but not the calculus to make those cold-blooded decisions. Made me curious. Made me wonder what the man's wife had been like, that Little Johns had fallen so far from the tree. Or if she'd had much influence at all, if he'd talked about notes in a Bible rather than answering to Billy-boy's ma.

Made me wonder if like drew like, and that was part of the reason I'd always had such shitty luck with people. Rest of the man's crew had seemed unusually decent, too; the one I'd faced down when I'd emptied the locker, and the one who'd mentioned serpents when the rain came-- he must've seen the cave paintings in the bolthole where I'd stashed Santana's man. And Dahl, of course. Now there was a woman.

I mighta focused more of my energy on Dahl instead of her shot-caller, if I'd thought there was any real potential to be found there. She's a hell of a fighter, with a body made for all kinds of sin and a mind nearly as vicious as mine. Reminded me of Kyra in that way, if a little more disciplined. But there wasn't even a hint of arousal in her scent all the times I was near her, even when she winched down to pull me up to the ship. Probably for the best. We're a little too alike to run smoothly together for long.

But Johns? Big Daddy Johns brings back my days as a Ranger, back when I'd still thought I was on the legit side of the law. Men who genuinely thought of their squaddies as brothers, and didn't prey on the less fortunate. Most of 'em died young, or got betrayed same as I did. Never thought a man like that could thrive in the bounty business.

Guess he's still got time to surrender to statistics, though; he ain't nearly as old as he should be. Must have spent a lot of time relativistic, or slumbering years away in cryo in the ghost lanes. I'd have guessed he and Little Johns for brothers, not father and son, if Billy hadn't bitched about his daddy one of the times he had me in cuffs. Married young, maybe, spent all his time in space; that's the way things go sometimes. Kid grew up resentful, decided to best his father at his own job; that's the way things go sometimes, too.

I'll probably never know if it woulda gone that way with me, even if I _do_ find my world. Necros wrote the first chapter of my life, and they're still doing their best to write the last. Vaako should have known I wouldn't fold that easy, though. Or maybe he did; last thing I heard Krone say when he knocked me off that cliff was 'keep what you kill', and Vaako's the one who truly wants the crown. Krone probably got 'promoted' to full dead the moment he set foot back in the Basilica, all so Vaako could claim it without the odor of betrayal. And if my name turned up on the lips of the Quasi-Dead again? The failure could be conveniently blamed on the cut-out.

I'm sure it has, by now. No doubt I'll run into Vaako again when I do reach Furya. Third strike might be my last... or it might be his. One way or the other, that'll be a legendary day.

'Til then? I'm a simple creature, when you get right down to it. Don't need more than the basics to get by: shelter, food, quiet, the occasional fuck. Gender don't matter, long as they're willing; spend enough of your adult life in the system and you learn to make do. It'll be a mild day on Crematoria before the likes of Johns looks at the likes of me, though, or I might mix business with pleasure the next time I pass his way. Because I'm starting to figure we _will_ have business again, and soon. 

With all records of Furya destroyed, my best bet is probably living history: people who knew the planet first hand. Forty years is a long time, but it ain't enough for dust to blow over _every_ grave. Johns must've been an adult already when it happened; merc with his clock should at least know who to ask next, if nothing more. And _him_ , I think I can trust far enough to give a straight answer.

Me trusting a merc? Time was, I would have sworn the day would never come. 

...Might be interesting to see what other assumptions he might prove wrong.


End file.
